This invention relates to a forms layout gauge for measuring the coordinates of blank spaces on a paper form at which to print characters using a computer-controlled printer.
Word processing equipment has come into use on an enormous scale, particularly word processing equipment comprising a personal computer having a display screen, a word processing program, and a printer controlled by the computer during execution of the word processing program.
Such word processing equipment has significant advantages over a typewriter in most circumstances. However, in a circumstance involving a preprinted paper form having blank spaces that are to be filled in during printing, use of such word processing equipment has involved difficulty. A widely practiced trial and error approach to dealing with this difficulty is to make a test run in which one of the preprinted forms is inserted into the printer, and the word processing equipment is used to print characters on the inserted form. Based on seeing where the characters print during the test run, the operator of the equipment can perform editing operations so that blank spaces on of the same preprinted form can be completed with the correct alignment.
This widely practiced trial and error approach is time-consuming. In a given office where many different preprinted forms are in use, any of which may be revised from time to time, it is quite time-consuming and burdensome to carry out this trial and error approach over and over again with the various different forms and the various different revised forms.
An alternative approach is to us a ruler to make a series of measurements to determine horizontal and vertical coordinates for each of a group of particular blank character spaces on the preprinted form. In one of the series of measurements, the ruler is oriented to extend left to right across the form to measure the distance between the left edge of the form and a particular blank character space. In another of the series of measurements, the ruler is oriented to extend up and down across the form to measure the distance between the top edge of the form and the particular blank character space.
Special rulers are in widespread use for making such sequential measurements. One such special ruler has numerous scales, such as a scale in units of 10 pitch (i.e, 10 character spaces per inch), other scales in units of 12 pitch and 15 pitch, and other scales in units of 6 lines per inch and 8 lines per inch. Because such special rulers have such multiple scales, and because the scales are in units that are standard for printers (i.e., 10 pitch, 12 pitch, 15 pitch; 6 lines per inch and 8 lines per inch), they are much more useful than an ordinary 12-inch ruler for dealing with this matter. Notwithstanding the improvement such a special ruler provides, its use, like the use of an ordinary 12-inch ruler, involves repeated rotation of the ruler between horizontal and vertical orientations, and on each such repetition the ruler needs to be translated back and forth until it is lined up properly relative to an edge of the form.
As indicated by the problems involved in the foregoing approaches, there is a substantial need for an improved, easier to use, gauge for dealing with this matter.